Xiaomi has started rolling out the face unlock feature for its Redmi Note 5 Pro smartphone. As promised, Xiaomi has started pushing out the update, and users are reporting to have gotten the face unlock feature as part of MIUI 9.2.4.0 build. At the launch of Redmi Note 5 Pro on February 14, Xiaomi had promised to push the feature by the end of March 2018.

The Redmi Note 5 and Redmi Note 5 Pro went on sale for the first time yesterday and those who bought the Pro variant are definitely in for a surprise. While Xiaomi clearly stated its plans to release face unlock feature, nobody saw it coming this early. The Chinese smartphone maker also confirmed it sold over 300,000 units in less than three minutes of the sale going live on Flipkart and mi.com.

Xiaomi might be pushing out the face unlock feature early in order to counter Huawei’s e-brand Honor. Honor, one of the strongest competitors to Xiaomi this year, released face unlock feature for its budget smartphone Honor 9 Lite early this week. Honor 9 Lite is available at a starting price of Rs 10,999, and the company says face unlock feature released in batches, will be rolled out to everyone by March 5, 2018.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 and Redmi Note 5 Pro have huge shoes to fill since its predecessor Redmi Note 4 was the best-selling smartphone last year. Xiaomi claims to have sold over 9.6 million units of Redmi Note 4 since it was first announced in January last year. The Redmi Note 5 series brings modern design and updated hardware in a price point that continues to remain attractive and cheaper than rivals.

The next sale of Redmi Note 5 and Redmi Note 5 Pro will be held on February 28. If the first sale is anything of an indicator then the demand for the new Redmi phones is pretty high. Prices for the Redmi Note 5 start at Rs 9,999, while the Redmi Note 5 Pro starts at Rs 13,999.